1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to advertisement (“ad”) placement on websites accessed over the internet or otherwise via mobile applications accessed by—electronic computing devices including mobile devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and methods for creating and using a revenue value index to score impressions and/or users for ad placement or to provide analytics and information to publishers for future use. The revenue value index is configured to evaluate data obtained or acquired from first-party and/or third-party and/or publisher platforms for the purpose of valuing either ad impressions or the users engaging the websites on which the ad is likely to be placed.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the popularity and use of the Internet and mobile computing devices, web browsers, mobile applications and sites providing content have grown dramatically over the past decade. With this growth there has been an equally dramatic growth and migration to online (for example, via the internet) and digital (for example, via mobile devices or applications) advertising. However, online and digital advertising presents a complex eco-system involving a complicated interplay among several entities, including online or digital publishers, online and digital advertisers (both informed and uninformed), and users or viewers who browse the internet to view all types of content available on websites that are of interest to them.
Digital advertising typically uses modeling platforms that use impressions (display of an ad to a user while viewing a web page), impression values (intrinsic, i.e., value to an “advertiser” and value to a “publisher” of content), estimated impression values, and inventory of content. Impression values include intrinsic values, which are values to advertisers and publishers. Estimated impression values include values to publishers and advertisers (both informed and uninformed).
Until now, many schemes that benefit advertisers exist. However, there are a myriad of challenges faced by publishers in this complex eco-system. First, it is difficult for internet publishers to accurately value their inventory of online or digital advertising impressions. Second, a subset of digital advertisers, who often devote considerable resources to understanding the value of user impressions, have a competitive advantage over other advertisers, which allows them to more accurately value page impressions. Generally, advertisers often invest a considerable amount of resources and time in determining the pricing of impressions that they are targeting. Advertisers often use third party data resources in the valuation process. By obtaining this additional information, advertisers can value an impression more accurately than their competitors and/or the publisher. This can result in differential bidding, where some advertisers are willing to pay much more than others. This often results in publishers being uninformed and receiving much less for their inventory from advertisers who pay less. Third, real-time bidding (“RTB”) auctions allow advertisers to compete in real-time for publisher impressions. Often in these types of auctions, the final “clearing price” for an impression is based on the price bid by the second highest bidder and a “static” floor price that is set by the publisher associated with the impression. Yet, the publisher associated with the impression sets the static floor price, with little or no knowledge of its value, as a result of which that static floor price is frequently lower than what many advertisers are willing to pay, and therefore, publishers are not maximizing the value of their advertising inventory. Fourth, an informed advertiser may bid on an impression in at least two situations. For example, in a first situation, where the only competing bids are from uninformed advertisers. And, in a second situation, where the publisher has not accurately assessed the value of the impression. In either situation, it is possible and often likely, that the informed bidders will pay significantly less than they would have been prepared to pay because the second bid received and the publisher floor price are both too low.
For at least the reasons indicated above, to avoid pricing for publishers that is below what an informed publisher would demand, there is a clear need for publishers to be able to automatically and accurately value their impression inventory in order to protect themselves from informed advertisers in the RTB market place. Existing solutions do not adequately address this dire need for publishers to be able to automatically and accurately value their impression inventory to protect themselves from informed advertisers in the RTB market place.
There exist some schemes for determining overall content values for content elements and/or web pages in a web network, for example, conventional schemes configured to determine the value of content on a website and for optimizing viewer traffic through a website to maximize the value of the website. Such schemes have involved operations that separately analyze the revenue generated for each ad unit on every page of the website, the revenue from each component added up to determine the revenue value of the web page. Once the revenue value for each page is determined, the overall revenue of the website or network of sites is determined by adding together the revenue value for each page on a website or network of sites. The network of sites include a plurality of commonly managed or commonly owned sites; an advertising network of sites, where ads may be sold by one entity or by a plurality of related or unrelated entities; and/or a collection of other websites provided by related or unrelated entities that have decided to pool resources in order to optimize their revenue.
There are other schemes that enhance optimization of the revenue generated by a website or network of sites. Traffic over the internet is generally managed on the basis of the immediate revenue that can be generated, without taking into account the total revenue potential for each visit/view. Recent techniques for optimizing internet traffic flow focus on the entire website or network of sites and take into account value generated from a journey through various sites.
There is a need in the industry for establishing a revenue value index that may be used by publishers as well as others to measure the overall value (dollar or other) of ad impressions or users engaging websites on which ads will be placed in order to determine fair pricing.